“I am a wizard’s apprentice, or I was. My master is dead.”
“And the rest of it?”
“Uh...” Tobas fell silent.
“You had a good pair of oars in that boat, they tell me, and you look fit; why didn’t you row for shore?”
“Uh...”
“You wanted to get aboard this ship, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Tobas admitted after a moment’s hesitation, seeing no alternative.
“I thought so. And I don’t think it’s because you were afraid of what the Pirate Towners would do to you, either, not with that accent you have.” He sat back and looked up at Tobas, his hands pressed together before his chest. “Well,” he continued. “Wherever you’re from, I’d guess you’re pretty much alone in the world or you wouldn’t be here; and whoever you are, I don’t mind letting you work your passage to Ethshar of the Sands, or even Ethshar of the Spices. You will work, though. The overlords have decreed that castaways and refugees are to receive free passage; and if I’m wrong about you, you can go and complain to old Ederd the Fourth when we reach Ethshar of the Sands, but until then you’ll work. If you don’t, we’ll put you back in that boat we found you in. Fair enough?”
Tobas nodded mute agreement and did not dare to ask for an explanation of the difference between Ethshar of the Sands and Ethshar of the Spices or who Ederd IV might be.
He allowed himself to be led meekly away and assigned a hammock. He was on his way to the galley to help the cook with the crew’s dinner when it finally sank in that he had made it, despite the failure of his concocted story. They were not going to hang him as a pirate, nor throw him back in the sea. He was on his way to Ethshar to seek his fortune and find a new home!
He smiled. His bad luck was obviously past. He had needed a ship and here he was on a ship. He had needed a boat to reach the ship and he had found one. Then he remembered that he had stolen the boat, which the ship’s crew had hauled aboard and lashed down on deck, and the smile faded. Some day, he promised himself, when he was rich and powerful, he would pay those two lovers back for their boat and for the trouble he had put them through.
And for the chicken, too, while he was at it.
CHAPTER 5
The first port of call was Ethshar of the Sands, and at the sight of the city Tobas, already unsettled by the strange, flat landscape they had been sailing past, lost his nerve completely. He had not realized that a city could be so large. He had known Telven wasn’t much, but he had thought that Shan on the Sea was a good-sized town, with a population he guessed at a thousand or more.
The entire population of Shan on the Sea could be lost without a trace in Ethshar of the Sands.
Tobas had first begun to have misgivings when they left the familiar hills and patchy beaches behind, passing league after league of almost featureless flat coastline, flat as a calm sea, an endless plain of sand and grass. He had not realized that land could be so flat; never before had he seen any sort of terrain but the gentle hills and graveled beaches of his homeland.
And when he glimpsed the Great Lighthouse in the distance, even before he realized its actual size, that did not help at all; the single huge tower thrusting up from this strange, level world had seemed almost threateningly out of place. As the ship drew nearer and the palace dome appeared, followed by the endless expanse of red-tiled roofs, his uncertainty grew steadily. Row after row of buildings lined the sandy shores, leagues of them, it seemed, as the ship worked its way up The Channel, past the Outer Towers, past the Outer Docks, past the Inner Towers, and into Seagate Harbor.
The city even smelled strange; an odd, hot scent reached the ship, compounded of smoke, fish, and tight-packed humanity as well as other things he could not identify. No place in the Free Lands had smelled like that.
He stood at the rail, fending pole in his hands, and stared in dumbfoundment. How could there be enough people in all the world to fill so many buildings? What did they all do? Where did their food come from, with no farmland inside the walls?
A fishing boat drifted uncomfortably near, and the next man aft from Tobas fended it off, then cursed the Telvener roundly for his negligence. Tobas woke up enough to turn his eyes from the shore to the surrounding water, but even that was mind-boggling; more shipping was crowded into this one harbor, he was sure, than could be found in all, the Free Lands of the Coasts put together.
It was all too much for him, and when the ship was safely docked and the captain called for all who were going ashore, he remained where he was, hanging onto the rail and staring at the bustling streets.
A few moments later, the captain — Tobas had learned two days out that the captain’s name was Istram and the ship’s was Golden Gull, but he still thought of the man simply as “the captain” and the vessel simply as “the ship” — came up behind him and asked, without preamble, “Aren’t you leaving the ship?”
Tobas jumped. “Ah... no,” he said. “I think I’ll stay on, if you don’t mind.”
The captain shrugged. “An extra hand is welcome — if you pull your weight. You weren’t much use with that pole coming into port, and you have yet to show me any of the magic you claim to know.”
“It’s all fire magic,” Tobas explained defensively, his hand falling to the hilt of his athame. “What use is that on a ship?” He had settled on this explanation when taunted by the crew and had gone so far as to use his single spell to ignite his worst tormentor’s bedding to prove his ability.
After that, no one had bothered him, but apparently word had not reached the captain. “I’ve been lighting the galley fires, but what else can I do?”
“We don’t need a wizard to light fires!” Istram said scornfully.
“I’m not asking for a wizard’s pay!” Tobas retorted quickly. The captain smiled. “Good, because you wouldn’t get it. You haven’t even earned the boots we gave you or the food you’ve eaten. I’m a kind man, though, so if you want to stay aboard, you may; our next port is Ethshar of the Spices, if you care to leave us there; after that, it depends on what cargo we can get, probably we’ll head back west.”
Tobas nodded. “Thank you, sir.” He glanced down at the boots just mentioned, which had been donated by a lad in the crew who had outgrown them. The captain was right; he hadn’t really done enough work yet to earn them.
He sighed; he was a long way from the rich, easy life he wanted.
They were two days in port, unloading roughly half the cargo of furs, oils, and other goods and replacing it with freshly slaughtered beef, and a warlock, whose magic would keep the meat cool and prevent spoilage. There was enough lifting, hauling on ropes, and general hard labor involved that, by the time the ship was loaded full again, Tobas felt he had earned a cobbler’s entire shop. Once or twice he gave serious thought to deserting — or rather, since he had never formally signed on, leaving — but the sight and sound and smell of the crowded streets were still enough to deter him. Ethshar of the Sands was terrifying in its immensity and alienness; Ethshar of the Spices might not be.